Model Community Bill of Rights Template for Occupy Communities

Submitted by Paul on Sun, 12/04/2011 - 21:55

This just in from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which I work closely with. A VERY exciting development for the fast growing Community Rights movement, and its new relationship with Occupy groups.

Please spread this announcement as widely as you can.

I also just posted it on my facebook (PaulCienfuegos) and twitter (@CienfuegosPaul) accounts, and will continue to do frequent updates, so if your contacts want to keep updated on this fast growing movement, please encourage them to subscribe to these links, and/or to my blog at PaulCienfuegos.com.

We’re offering this model Community Bill of Rights template for Occupy communities that wish to begin mobilized initiative campaigns in their region. Think of the template as a menu to pick and choose what’s important in your community. It’s meant to provide a framework and a starting point, not necessarily to be used in its entirety. The text is derived from ongoing national and global work by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) such as Ecuador adding Rights for Nature to its Constitution, Pittsburgh stripping drilling corporations of corporate constitutional “rights,” such as corporate “personhood” and Spokane’s Community Bill of Rights initiative which narrowly missed passing by 1,000 votes last month. Those efforts have joined over a hundred other municipal campaigns that have driven into law local bills of rights.